A MAGHULL garage owner cleared of being involved with a violent gang of bank robbers is now a marked man in prison with “a price on his head”, a court was told.

Christopher Shaw, 29, was acquitted by a jury earlier this month after he and two other men had been on trial accused of being part of an gang of robbers who netted more than £750,000 in raids on banks and cash vans.

But Shaw, of Cambridge Avenue, Crosby, was back at Preston Crown Court to be sentenced over a massive cannabis farm found in one of his garages. Shaw ran two garages – Sefton Autos, in Maghull, and CS Car Body Repairs, in Congleton.

Before his client was jailed for four years, Simon Driver, defending, said Shaw had been living in prison since his arrest last December under “real and serious threat”.

One of his co-defendants, Christopher Jones, 22, from Speke, was sentenced to 19 years behind bars and Shaw told the court in his defence, during the trial, that Jones and another man would bring him cars that he would fix up and respray. Those cars were then used in various robberies across the North West and getaway chases.

Since then, Shaw’s mum and ex-girlfriend had been threatened by underworld figures, the court heard.

Mr Driver told the court: “He has been subjected to real and serious threats while remanded in custody. There has been a price on his head in HMP Preston. On three separate occasions, he has been put under close observation as someone subject to a serious and immediate risk of harm.

“Threats have been extended to his now former girlfriend and his mother. He will never return to Merseyside.”

Judge Stuart Baker was told police last year found 572 plants at his business premises in Congleton.

Police believe the crop would have yielded around 30kgs which, if sold at street level, would have made around £300,000. Mr Driver told the court that the garage was bought with a view to Shaw plying his legitimate trade as a car sprayer.

But he then decided to equip it to grow the drug in the hope he could pay off some debts.

Mr Driver said: “He hoped to earn £60,000 to pay off his business and personal debts.”